


None Will Hear the Postman Knock

by mugsandpugs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 02:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6834574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canon Divergent AU: Tony's response had Peter been seriously injured in the fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	None Will Hear the Postman Knock

**Author's Note:**

> _And none will hear the postman knock_  
>  _Without a quickening of the heart_  
>  _For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?_
> 
> \- W.H. Auden
> 
>  
> 
> I don't know what this is and I'm not sorry. ( You can also read this on my tumblr [here.](http://mugsandpugs.tumblr.com/post/144269916909/none-will-hear-the-postman-knock) )

It wasn’t the boy’s scream that caught Tony’s attention, not really. The feedback in his ears was significant and he heard all sorts of sounds of battle: grunts and snarls, the impact of punches landing and the growls of punches missed. One errant scream was hardly noticeable.

It was the whimper that followed- a tiny, watery sort of sound; almost breathless- that had him turning away from Steve. His momentary distraction was immediately punished by the metallic slamming of the indestructible shield against his armor and the bone-jarring impact that was sent shuddering through him and he gasped aloud when he felt the reverberations in his teeth. 

“Cap,” he panted, a gloved palm falling on the super-soldier’s chest. “Cap, time-out…” 

He wasn’t nicknamed America’s Boyscout for nothing: just as Tony knew he would, Steve immediately halted his attack, head cocked to garner what was up, and that was the only invitation Tony needed to launch himself into the air, speaking loudly as he scanned the area. 

“Kid,” he said, trying to not let panic show in his voice. “Kid? Peter?” He used the suit’s technology to mute the feed from his other teammates and the ensuing silence was near deafening. “Paging Mr. Spiderman.” 

The suit helpfully supplied him with a tracker, highlighting upon the kid’s location and beeping softly, and within seconds Tony was there throwing aside fragments of crumbled building. Damn kid; Tony should have thought twice before recruiting an amateur. He’d gotten himself stuck, probably wrecked the minuscule microphone Tony had carefully stitched into the fine threads of his suit. No doubt he’d spring to his feet raring to rejoin the fight once Tony got him out- 

A flash of dusty red underneath broken bricks and mortar and sheetwall caught his attention, and Tony found himself grinning despite himself as he seized upon the kid’s arm and tugged. “Come on, lazybones-” 

“Stop!” The sound came, not from the speaker in Iron Man’s helmet, but from underneath the rubble. So he _had _broken their communication device. “Oh _god,_ please stop.” His voice had the edge of pained, begging desperation to it, and Tony halted immediately, worry going off like sparklers in his brain. That tiny quill of a voice had all the markings of true agony and fear. __

”Kid?” he questioned, more softly this time. Following the length of the visible arm he began carefully pushing rocks off what must have been the kids’ face and head, sternly instructing the suit to check his vitals. It was possible he was just scared, right? It was always a bit alarming the first time a building fell on you. 

“Skeletal scan complete,” the suit’s new feminine-sounding voice alerted Tony. “Multiple contusions and fractures, left Tibia broken. Beginning neurological examination.” 

Guilt snared, hot and fast, in Tony’s gut. A broken leg wasn’t the worst injury any of them had suffered, and yet. He tried to think. What abilities did this kid have? He’d asked him, right? He was fairly certain he had asked. There was the web business, the wall climbing… He wracked his brains. Healing? The kid healed fast, right? Didn’t all the super-powered ones heal fast? 

It hit him then that he had no idea. None at all. He had thrown this teenager into a battle between adults without so much as confirming what he could and could not do. He had simply wanted bodies to aid him in a fight. And in so doing, he may have made corpses of children. 

“Spinal cord severely damaged, sir,” the suit informed him. “Risk of paraplegia extremely likely.” 

Tony’s heart stopped, and then slammed forward against his ribs, hammering. _Fuck. Fuck!_

He cleared off the kids’ face, his chest, his other arm. With a shaky hand, Peter reached out to Tony. “Mr. Stark?” he said, uncertain and dazed-sounding. 

Tony clasped his hand, demanding emergency services immediately, if not faster. “Don’t move, Peter,” he said, and slipped his fingers under the teen’s mask, pulling it from his face. He was bleeding heavily from a cut around his jaw. 

A hand on his arm made him jump. It was Natasha, kneeling down beside him. “What happened?” she asked, sounding a bit breathless from running. 

“Kid’s hurt,” said Tony, and Natasha must have heard something in his voice because she frowned, then reached behind his ear and touched a sensor that made his mask retreat. He let her look into his eyes for half a second before springing to her feet, clapping her hands together. “Show's over!” she shouted. “We’re done here.” 

Nearby, the fight halted. The War Machine was already soaring in his direction; Falcon landed at a crouch and folded his wings behind his back, approaching them too. Steve and Bucky were nowhere to be seen. Wanda was eyeing him nervously, as if afraid he’d try to send her home any second now, but Tony had eyes only for the man- teenager- _kid, he’s a damn kid, he’s a-_ shuddering lightly next to him. 

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter told him, and Tony felt his fingers twitching in his grasp. His lower lip trembled, eyes huge and fearful. “I- I want… I want to go home.” 

And Tony had no response for that because, as his rocketing pulse kept reminding him, _I did this. I did this._ It was all he could do to continue breathing, to avoid screaming aloud at the horror of it all. Slowly- he saw Natasha’s face before he even registered that he’d turned his neck- he found himself pleading to her, to anyone, with his eyes. _Make this better._

He wished for Pepper, suddenly and so strongly that he could have sobbed. And maybe he did, because Natasha, efficient Nat, forever keeping her wits about her- was already inserting herself between him and Peter’s begging, hopeful eyes. 

“Can you call my aunt?” he thought he heard the boy say. 

A hand, then two, gripped him underneath his arms and he was wrenched away from the scene, spun and thrown around. A cry of protest left his lips when he felt Peter’s hand slipping from his- it suddenly felt of the utmost importance that he continue to hold on- and then he was face-to-face with a furious-looking Sam Wilson. 

“Is this what you wanted, Tony?!” the Falcon snarled, all traces of benign agreeability long gone. “You did a great job preventing casualties, didn’t you!” 

He felt so distanced from his body just then- so distanced from everything, as if he were watching this all from the outside. He was simultaneously hypo-aware of Sam’s face and unable to hear his words. His own voice in his head had transformed into Sam’s- _“You did this.”_ although the shape of his lips suggested that that had not been his words. Tony shook his head to try and clear it, but it didn’t help much. 

Rhodey, sweet Rhodey, was there in a heartbeat, knocking Sam’s hands away, sliding an arm around Tony’s waist. “Let’s go,” he said quietly, without bothering to so much as glance at any of the people gathered around, all of them staring at Tony in undisguised disgust and hatred. “Let’s go home.” 

Tony allowed himself to be dragged along, feeling numb and boneless, for once not especially caring where he went and why. 

Somewhere behind him a small voice called, “Mr. Stark…” 

**###**

Fighting in the near dark trapped between Rogers and Barnes should have been exhilarating, terrifying, heart-pounding and adrenaline-filled. And perhaps it was, for a moment. But this darkness was doing funny things to his mind, it seemed. All the fogginess of a hangover without the actual headache. He barely felt the impact of bodies against his and once more he felt far away from his body. 

The suit, were it not so damaged, would likely supply all kinds of ‘helpful’ terms for this sensation. Dissociation, probably. Or something like that. Tony didn’t care- he found that he _couldn’t_ care- all seemed a dreamlike trance; frames stolen from the footage playing before his eyes, making it skip like a bad record. 

Barnes was down- when had he done that, again?- and somehow Steve was on him. Beating his head into the ground, ripping his helmet from his face. Upon meeting Steve’s eyes, Tony was shocked for a moment to see the murderous intent in his gaze. He smiled, knowing his own teeth were stained red. He, unlike most, had suspected that the Captain was capable of this, of letting the rage take over. America’s golden boy was as fallible as the fragments of green in his eyes. 

Steve reared back with the shield clenched hard in both hands, bringing it down again and again on Tony’s chest. Hearing the crunch of the arc reactor cracking made Tony give a long, full-bodied shudder. He knew the end was close, and he felt ready to accept it. Through his watering eyes, Steve's face became Bucky's, Peter's, became Charlie's, and then because things always seemed to end up there, became his father's. _You did this. You deserve this._

But miraculously, impossibly, Steve _stopped_ then; control flooded back into his expression, and he regarded Tony cooley for a moment before standing, before gathering Barnes once more in his arms. Taking what was his back up into the light and leaving Tony behind. 

Tony smiled bitterly once he found himself alone again. Never let it be said that Cap wasn’t a cruel bastard.


End file.
